O'CONNOR, callen michael

TAKE WHAT IS LEFT OF ME

AND MAKE IT A BEAUTIFUL MELODY

CALLEN MICHAEL O'CONNOR
YOU'D BE MY REMEDY

twenty three ,.,., ex-cia ,.,., technically unemployed ,.,., jensen ackles
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A is for Ankle.

It was a stupid talent to have.

It ... actually wasn't a talent at all, really. Bay would call it one, but her opinion didn't count.

He wasn't a klutz. Generally. Most of the time. Almost all of the time. And everyone had their moments, right?

But he'd sprained his ankle one too many times for it to be counted as one of those one-or-two-time things.

Like the time he was ten and one of the kids in his house tried to trip him, and he'd avoided it, only managing to trip on his own feet two seconds later.

Or the time when he was thirteen and had tried to be smooth and fell down one, two, maybe seven stairs trying to talk to a girl that he thought was hot and tried to be smooth at the same time.

Or the time when he was nineteen and had tried to make Bay laugh while they'd been working in the shop, and had tripped over his pants, which were borrowed from Dmitri since he'd been lazy to go to his own apartment, and had rolled down.

Every time, he landed on his right ankle - which was why that side is now favored. Dmitri constantly jokes that, before he leaves the house, he should bubble wrap his right ankle, just to make sure that one day, it doesn't snap in two[for good, according to Bay].

B is for Bayleef.

It was all Pokemon's fault.

Dmitri had started it, but Callen used it occasionally after that. It was, in the same way, that Dmitri and Bay called him a leprechaun, or he and Bay called Dmitri a moose.

They'd been together, just the three of them, to use just each others' names. To use anything to call each other by, really. It wasn't like Baylee wasn't listed as "Bayleef" in his phone.

The girl had been like a little sister to him for a long time. He was Dmitri's best friend, no, he was Dmitri's brother in every way but blood - though he joked that they didn't really know that for a long time because he didn't know who his parents were, and if his mother or father had done a little bit of soul searching on the side, they could've been half-somethings - and Dmitri and Bay were sort-of like a packaged deal. One didn't come without the other.

But she sort-of went to being a little sister to something he didn't know what to think of. Callen liked to think of himself as uncomplicated, and anything he thought of Baylee Grey was complicated in it's finest strand and thesaurus definition.

She would just remain Bay. Their relationship didn't need words to describe it - he hated labels anyway; the ones on people were stupid and usually stereotypical, and the ones found on food always told him something he didn't want to know, like how he'd be getting diabetes from eating that whole container of ice cream or gaining three pounds if he ate that family size bag of chips by himself - and really, he knew that he'd put his life on the line for her before, as he'd done several times before.

That didn't need a label.

C is for CIA.

Callen didn't hate many things.

His birth parents. Summer. Hangovers.

However, there were some things that he just loathed, to the point where his stomach would curl and he was sure that he could spit venom if he had to just at their mention.

The CIA was such a thing. It was actually one of the top things on his list. The top, in reality.

When Cal was younger, he'd wanted to be a ninja, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He'd thought that eating pizza and living in a sewer apartment and being a bad ass looked pretty cool. That grew into wanting to be a spy, like James Bond, and getting all the Bond girls swarming around him like he was the best thing on earth, which he was.

When Dmitri and him had been recruited at sixteen, Callen had thought it'd be pretty freaking awesome. Car chases and explosions they could walk away from while wear sunglasses with "Eye of the Tiger" playing, etc, it all seemed a bit too good to be true.

Which it was, and then some.

They expected them to be adults. Which, if Callen was honest, Dmitri was pretty much an adult. But him, on the other hand? Not so much. The CIA expected them to be able to be thrown into the deep end of a pool, and swim, without water wings, and with the most simple of training.

When he said the most simple of training, things had been difficult in training, and he'd thought that everything was so over the top. But when he was out in the field for the first time, he realized how much more they needed to survive, but wouldn't get it.

He wasn't the most observant, if he was being honest about himself. He didn't notice when they started to be the oldest of the group, and the people older than them started to just not be there. He didn't get too attached to people, really he had Dmitri and that was enough, and so when the people he treated like the best of friends ceased to be around, it wasn't even a loss.

And then he and Dmitri were those people.

The CIA wanted them while they were young and didn't know any better. They were pawns, manipulable, and Cal didn't get it until after they'd been tossed out like yesterday's garbage. After everything they'd seen and done, they really couldn't do anything ... normal. Even walking down the street, a sense of paranoia was left with you about who would be waiting around the corner.

They'd only been in the field for for years. He couldn't imagine the children that started out younger than them, twelve year olds and younger being trained to maim and kill and ... it made his stomach sick. He'd look at Bay, and he was sure that Dmitri did the same in darker moments, and be glad that it was them and not her, because he couldn't bear to even think of her waking up in the middle of the night after dreams filled with blood and gunshots and corpses only to run to the bathroom and throw up whatever was left of dinner because memories were a bitch, and all they served to do was drag him backwards.

D is for Dmitri.

There were a lot of things wrong with Dmitri.

He had this obsessive need to keep things in order. He wanted Cal to be fully clothed all the time, which took so much effort. He was a bit too mature. He was a bit controlling. Over-protective. He was a little bit of a show off with his cooking skills. He kept the apartment a little too clean.

But brothers complained about each other all the time, right?

They'd met in elementary school, as these tiny kids with no knowledge of anything but thinking that they were the smartest things on the planet, as most kids do. Callen had been searching for something, someone, normal to cling to. And he'd stumbled upon Dmitri.

Cal was sure that, thinking back on it, neither of them even know a percent of what they were getting themselves into by becoming friends.

Cal was probably always the needier one. He didn't really have parents, or siblings, or anyone he could rely on. So was he a pest at times? Probably.

Dmitri had his moments, but doesn't everyone? His mom, his dad ... they were moments that he should've had older, when he didn't have a little sister to look after, or the CIA soon coming to pick him up into some spy prodigy as they'd done with Cal.

As brothers are, they were extremely protective of each other, and still are, really. Dmitri worries over Cal like a mother hen, and Cal mock fusses over Dmitri while keeping a hidden eye out for him. They were different that way.

He could tell you everything about Dmitri. From favorite color - purple - to when Dmitri would play his guitar the most - when Bay needed calming down as music always soothed her - to the fact that he wanted to go to college - something that his best friend would never say out loud, but didn't need to.

It was in the same token that Dmitri could tell you everything about Cal, including things that Cal would never say out loud.

They've been through thick and thin together. They're inseparable. They went from being strangers, to best friends, to brother, and plan on being there for as long as the other needs them. Good family never abandons each other.

E is for Energetic.

Cal may not have the exact same energy as Bay, but he sure has more than Dmitri.

As soon as he's woken up in the morning and had his coffee, he's basically the Energizer Bunny without a drum[because if Callen had a drum, that might actually be the day that Dmitri murders him and hides the body].

If he goes over to the Greys' apartment - if he'd actually slept in his own and not on their couch for once - and catches Bay in the middle of her morning routine, then he doesn't really need coffee. Bay is basically like a five hour energy shot minus the 'five hour' part. Her good mood and utter bounciness in the morning is absolutely contagious.

Dmitri has to deal with both him and Bay and their energy. Sometimes, sometimes, Cal feels bad.

Sometimes.

F is for Foster Care.

He didn't have any memories of his parents.

Once he'd been put into the system, he'd been shifted around from group house to group house.

He was loud as a child. Always had been, always would be. Most people, however, didn't want to take home a loud baby. They wanted a baby who wouldn't put up a fuss, who wouldn't cry or scream or run around the place making a mess. That wasn't Callen in any capacity.

So he went from a baby to a toddler to a child. He started school. Even then, he was well liked, but he didn't really make any effort as some children do.

When he was seven, he was shifted to another house where he was the oldest of five children. He started another school. That's where he met his lifetime best friend, brother more like it, Dmitri.

It was the first time that he'd actually wanted to stay somewhere, at that school, with Dmitri and his baby sister that looked like a football in her stroller that came with his mom when she came to pick him up. He walked with one of the other younger kids since their house was only two blocks over, and the woman that took care of them only did it for the nice checks she got from the government instead of for any real caring she had for any of them.

That was where he stayed. The kids came and went, some of them getting adopted because they were cute or quiet or smart.

And then there was him.

If it wasn't his ego that was jokingly painting him to be the best person to walk the planet earth, he wasn't really anything special. Sure he could make "friends" with just about anyone, but that was only because he was somehow a people drawing person. He was funny, but that only went so far.

And when it came to potential parents, as the years passed, he stopped trying to be nice and cute and sweet and funny and likable and everything else he tried to be so he could get out of the shit hole he refused to call a home.

When he hit thirteen he realized that parents didn't want to skip right to the terrible teens phase. They wanted babies that were cute and cuddly, that giggled and gurgled, that they could dress up and raise from the start.

Contrary to popular belief, Callen wasn't cute or cuddly, he didn't giggle or gurgle, and they certainly couldn't dress him up because if they came near him, he might've actually bit them.

None of the original four that had been here when he'd first come to this stinking house were there now. The owner pushed him around, made him do more chores than the other, but he figured it was because he was the oldest, he was there the longest, and he needed to earn his keep. He got the smallest bed in the room for the boys, even if he was the oldest and tallest, and it was the buy the window, which he stuffed with old clothes that didn't fit in the spaces around it in the winter, and unstuffed in the summer to get the breeze. He knew the ins and outs of the place, but that didn't make it feel any better than it did for the past six years.

A year later, Dmitri's mother died. He hadn't really known the woman - really, he didn't want to get close to adults, for whatever reason his CIA psychologist would gave later on - but he felt the loss in Dmitri and Bay, and it was like she had been his own mother. He was there for Dmitri, and by extension Bay, the entire time, every step of the way. A year after that, when their father was declared dead, he was there for that, too.

He was there for everything that happened to the Grey siblings. Really, they were the only family he had, even if they may or may not have thought of him the same way. Dmitri, and again by extension Bay, were the two people that remained a constant in his life excluding the owner of the house he lived in, and he couldn't ask for better people to call family.

When inspectors came around, he was shoved into his room. He'd climb out the window that he stuffed in the winter and unstuffed in the summer, and go to Dmitri's. He didn't need to stick around to act like he loved it there when he just couldn't wait to be out of there for good, three years, three years was all he had to manage and then he didn't have to go back to that miserable house with those cute little overly happy children that didn't have a single reason to be happy.

But he didn't even say a single word when he went over to the Greys'. He pretended like he was perfectly fine, even though he saw Dmitri's eyes rest on him just a bit longer than they usually they did, and Bay would linger a bit closer or sit on his lap and smile a bit more and laugh a bit louder.

He'd never told Dmitri about his "situation", as he called it. He never talked about where he lived, his absent family, or anything serious, really. Dmitri respected it, and didn't push. Callen didn't think that he could be more grateful for it, because if he had to talk it all out, he ... he didn't think he could. He didn't think he had the strength to speak about all of it, he didn't think he had the nerve to say that sometimes, just sometimes, he wished he'd been Dmitri because even if he didn't have parents anymore he'd had parents and he had memories and pictures and events and he'd had a real family at one point where as Callen had nothing to hang onto, and he'd sound more immature than he usually did and more bitter than he deserved to be and everything that Dmitri had dealt with for the past two years and was dealing with right now he didn't deserve that from Callen. It wasn't right, nor fair, and really Callen couldn't use Dmitri as a target for any misdirected anger after all he'd done for him.

When they were sixteen, and just recruited by the CIA, Dmitri had been giving the apartment building for him and Bay, to make sure that she was safe and would be okay while he went out and played savior to the world. Unknown fact, Callen was promised something, too.

In comparison to Dmitri getting an entire building, it seemed small. Stupid, even.

He got his name taken out of the system.

It wasn't even remotely legal. But it was his one condition. He didn't want to have live in that stupid house with the stupid hag that owned it and the stupid happy little kids that got eaten up by parents or shifted to another miserable joint.

He went and moved into the building that Dmitri got, and the rest was history.

He still wakes up with dreams, loosely using the word "dream" and more implying "nightmare", of the nights he'd dream of parents, dark and shadowed figures that were voiceless and faceless that came and took him away from shivering or sweat filled nights and made him feel so, so happy only to leave, abandoning dream!him to cry over them like his real parents did to the real him, and he stops himself from thinking about his parents, the ones that, even if he knows who they are, he will never really know who they are.

And he tries to force himself to believe that he doesn't want to.

G is for Glasses.

Cal had always been light sensitive. It was a little known fact, but it was the reason that he always had sunglasses on his person. However, it was a little known fact for a reason.

See, the CIA didn't exactly need for anyone else, especially Fordham, to know it's agents' weaknesses. Some had simple fears, like heights or darkness or small spaces. Some couldn't handle loud noises. Some, like him, couldn't handle bright lights.

He'd been captured on a solo op - something simple, they'd said, well simple his ass, was all he'd had to say during his debriefing - and they'd started to interrogate him. Now, the one thing that Callen could handle was interrogation. He was a smart ass by nature, but when he really tried, he could piss people off quite easily, which worked in his favor most times.

It was a gift.

However, he'd pushed a little too far. Instead of using his 'gift' to make them mad, which then caused them to make mistakes, they only got rougher. They started to try to figure out what would get through to him. He was moved to a smaller room, which did nothing. He was left in the dark. That did nothing, either. They messed around with noise levels with the speakers that "just happened" to be in the room. Nothing made a difference. Then, by chance, the power started to flicker. The on and off of the lights caused Callen to squint, and eventually close his eyes. It had been by accident.

It had been hours. He honestly thought he'd go blind, and his heart was racing, really, because he was helpless and he had a headache the size of the Empire State Building. But then one of them messed up, and Callen miraculously managed to get out. Calling Dmitri hadn't been an easy feat, especially since he'd had to use a pay phone, with his vision so sorely messed up. The CIA, when dealing with solo ops, let the agents return to the agency by themselves, just in case they are followed or something of the sort. It's not ever a huge deal, since solo ops are usually pretty easy, but this one had gone horribly wrong and for once he'd wished he'd had a partner.

He'd crawled into Dmitri's back seat and Dmitri had driven him straight to a hospital, not wanting to take a chance after Callen had managed to almost nonsensically get his point across.

Now, he wore contacts, as his vision had worsened, and used sunglasses all the time. The lights in his apartment were even dimmer than the ones in the Grey apartment, just for comfort. He hated summer due to the sun and heat before, but his hatred had only grown. Now, his sensitivity to light had gone from just a sensitivity to a fear of losing his vision due to light, and a pair of sunglasses were glued to his person, permanently.

H is for High School.

Callen had always been in trouble in high school. He was the class clown, he was "friends" with everyone, and it was very easy for him. Sure, he barely graduated, and he really doesn't know how he managed since he really doesn't think of himself as smart, but he managed, due to the CIA.

On the other hand, Dmitri hadn't had it easy in high school. He was gay - which, Callen had always been accepted because what was there to not accept? - and he was open about it. After all, why should he have to hide a part of himself?

But kids were cruel. They tortured him because he was different. Callen did his best to protect Dmitri. He used the pull that he had to get some people to leave him alone, and since Dmitri wouldn't fight anyone, if they did anything to Dmitri, Callen would personally go and knock heads together. He was the one that helped Dmitri out of lockers and he was the one that did all of the behind the scenes things that he never told Dmitri he did. It was his duty as his best friend to do what he could, end of story. By the time they hit their junior year, Dmitri was on the football team and people did mess with him because he was a moose. He was tall and built and strong, and if he wanted to, he could kick all of their asses quite easily.

Then the CIA recruited them, and the rest was history. Cal wasn't happy to leave the school - even though he wasn't happy there, he didn't exactly like change or new things, but he bit his tongue and accepted it because the CIA was helping him out in another way that was bigger than school or change, it was getting out of the system. He knew that Dmitri, however, couldn't wait to leave - if he was Dmitri, he would be glad to leave, too.

I is for Idiot.

"You're such an idiot," was the thing that probably came out of Bay's[and Dmitri's] mouths the most.

He was the type of person that made fun of everything. He had maybe one serious bone in his body, if that, or so he liked to think.

He was the type of person that made fun of himself to get other people - the Greys or anyone else that might have mattered - to laugh.

He was the type of person that could pull off CIA missions that required agility and stealth to the nines, and then trip over his own feet and hurt his ankle in the shop.

He was the type of person that had every pick up line in the book memorized, flirted endlessly, was amazingly good looking according to him, yet still ended up single while Dmitri had a boyfriend - something that Bay made fun of him with to no end.

Being called an idiot wasn't exactly a bad thing when you sort-of fulfilled the requirements of being an idiot. There were also worse things to be called, right? So he accepted it.

J is for Jokester.

He had a joke for everything. Literally, everything.

Cal thought on his feet. It was what he was good at. However, it was more shown in how he had a smart ass remark for anything thrown his way.

He tried his hardest to trick Dmitri, and sometimes, he even succeeded - rarely, really, and each time was a victory that was to be celebrated after he evaded the death threat surely coming his way from said moose.

Bay was easier to play with. However, he never felt the need to as much as he did with Dmitri. Maybe because with Bay, it felt like he was messing around with a puppy, and he'd feel immensely guilty if she took it the wrong way. He'd told Dmitri that once, and he'd snorted into his drink and held back on commenting that Bay was anything but a puppy.

When he'd been in school, he'd been the class clown. Class clown as in, actually being sent to the principal's office at times because he caused a disruption during "instructional time" more times than his hands would allow him to count.

His funny bone had just turned plural - funny bone. And to be honest, he was glad for it. He didn't have to rely on others to be entertained.

K is for Kainotophobia.

Callen didn't do change. He didn't do new things, new people, none of it really.

Not that it showed.

On the outside, he looked like someone that was very fluid. He could go from one thing to another without any problems, and he could think on his feet, so really, it shouldn't ever be a thought for someone that Cal would have this phobia.

It started from when he was a baby. After being put into the system, he'd been shifted from group house to group house. He didn't remember anything really, because he'd been under age five, but he remembered the feeling of being jostled or moved a lot, and he'd never liked the feeling.

Then, when he'd been placed in the group house he'd stayed in until he was recruited to the CIA, kids had come in and out without a second thought. It had all made him fear him coming and going at some point just like them, but really, he was unimportant, forgotten by the system, and he didn't know which was worse.

It's a stupid phobia, one that he can't explain if he wanted to. Maybe he knows why, maybe he can come up with the reasons out loud, but he can't even admit he has such a fear, much less explain why.

L is for Leprechaun.

It wasn't like Dmitri had meant for it to slip out.

They'd all been in the Greys' apartment one sunday, lazing around and taking the hot summer day to relax, when Callen had called out from his position on the couch.

"Mooooooose!"

Dmitri had been in the kitchen, getting something to drink, when he'd frowned thinly.

"What do you want, Leprechaun?"

There was a moment of silence, before Bay's laughter sounded loudly from the table, where she was reading. Dmitri wasn't too far behind. Callen marched into the kitchen, looking almost red with anger.

"Leprechaun?!"

Bay managed to choke out the word "Irish" while Dmitri coughed out "Short", to which both of them collapsed back into laughter after getting out.

"I don't have to take this abuse!" Callen had exclaimed before taking his leave, shutting the door behind him to leave Bay still gasping and Dmitri recovering.

after that, Callen had been leprechaun - making them Bayleef, Moose, and Leprechaun, respectively.

M is for Moose.

Dmitri was too tall for his own good. Too tall as in, ducking through doorways, being exactly one inch less than a foot taller than Bay, and not bothering to squish into cars because most of the time it was either uncomfortable because not only was he tall, he was built, too.

Seeing him in comparison to other people, especially Bay, was laughable. Standing next to her brother probably made Bay feel shorter than she actually was, and she often wore heels, which kind of made it worse that even with all of that help, he still towered over her. Callen, despite being of average height, had the same issue - Dmitri didn't tower over him, but he came close.

It was a day where Cal had purposely tripped Dmitri when the three of them had been in the Greys' apartment - where Callen could almost always be found, since his apartment was pretty much for sleeping only, and even then, it wasn't too uncommon for him to pass out on the couch in Dmitri and Bay's apartment, because apparently, that was more comfortable than his own bed - and it hadn't worked, just because Dmitri had learned to have a good center of gravity despite being so tall.

"I'd say we could call you the jolly green giant, but ..." Bay trailed off, and Callen cut in for her.

"You'e neither jolly nor green, is what she's trying to say," he said, and saw Dmitri's bitch glare aimed straight at him. "What, i'm just speaking the truth." Callen said.

"Yeah, well, you're in my apartment, so you should cease speaking all together." Dmitri said, with no room for an argument.

After a lull in conversation that was way too short, Callen burst out with a "I know what he is! He's a moose!"

Bay bit down on her tongue, but she couldn't help the hysterical laughter that bubbled out. Dmiti stuttered out protests, but Callen had began laughing too, and by then it was no use. After that, it just ... stuck.

N is for Next Door.

The day that Cal had settled into one of the apartments - specifically, the one right next door to Dmitri and Bay - had probably been one of the best days of his life.

The place was in good condition. Everything worked. It wasn't small and cramped. He didn't have to share, either.

That night was harder than the day had been. Inexplicably so.

He tossed and turned in his bed. He got up and went out to the living room and stared out of the window, looking out on the Bronx, his home, and couldn't find anything remotely peaceful in his body that would help him to go to sleep.

He went back to bed, and waited until the sun came up. He went over to the Grey apartment to have breakfast with them, as planned, and couldn't feel more like a walking zombie. When Dmitri asked what was wrong, he said nothing. He said the same thing when Bay came into the room moments later.

There was a downside of living in a group house. You got used to people. Being alone was kind of creepy after being crowded and trapped between other kids for your entire life. The thought that he was alone in his apartment suffocated him at times. These were the times when he would throw on some proper clothes and go outside, walk around and get some fresh air, because it was stupid that he wasn't happy that he was semi on his own for the first time.

Then, he started to fall asleep on the Greys' couch. It went from being questioned - because it was happening in the day time - to routine, because he'd just stay over and end up falling asleep and waking up there in the morning.

He felt stupid about it. Dmitri didn't mind, Bay didn't mind, but he minded. Was he really weak to the point where he couldn't even sleep in his own room in his own apartment?

It stayed, however. Because when he was stubborn and he went back over and tried to sleep, he wouldn't get any. He'd go over in the mornings, back to the storage unit that his apartment had become, and shower, change, get ready for the day. It was stupid, he knew that, but the term "next door" had gone from describing the Grey apartment, to his.

O is for Outgoing.

Callen was anything but quiet. Literally, he could not shut up.

He always had something to say. A joke to spin. A remark to make. It was always something.

People were drawn to him like moths to a flame. He didn't even try, really, people just liked him for some reason. When he was younger, he'd tried to use it to his advantage. Except, it hadn't exactly worked out.

Now, he's not even conscious of it. And for all of the people that are drawn to him, that like how he acts like an extrovert, Dmitri is his only friend - by choice.

P is for Parents.

He should've left well enough alone. But it didn't end up happening like that.

He might've used CIA resources to figure out who his parents were. No one really understands what it's like to never know the people that brought you into the world unless you're in that position. Dmitri felt another sort of pain, he wouldn't understand, just like Callen didn't understand his. They were different situations with the same outcome - neither of them had parents at the moment.

At one point, Callen liked to think that he'd just appeared in the world. It was better than thinking that his parents didn't want him, so they gave him away. Who would want to think that?

But ... it was sort-of true. Sort-of.

Finding his mother wasn't as difficult as he thought it would be. Long nights and sneaking around and using agency resources and equipment, yes, but he knew how to cover his tracks. He was nineteen, he knew what he was doing, he was old enough, or so he told himself.

Caelan Hayes was her name. His stomach had done the most drastic of flips when he'd seen it. His and his mother's names were so similar - had she named him after her? He felt nauseous, but he was sure it was in a good way. That meant that she had wanted him, right? If she had named him after her, that had to mean something. Right?

And then he saw who she was. Back in Ireland, she'd had a warrant out for her arrest. She was responsible for the murders of six people - a family, two young children and one elderly man included. Callen's nausea was almost overwhelming. He continued looking into it.

Revenge. That's what it had been. She'd fled to the United States and had gotten pregnant with him a year later. She'd been caught when she was eight months pregnant. He'd been born in a holding facility.

His name was nowhere to be found, on no documentation of hers', and apparently he'd been put into the custody of his father when she died during childbirth.

His father, Michael O'Connor, who was an alcoholic. He had, apparently, tried to clean up his act, but failed. He died of alcohol poisoning when Callen had turned one. Callen was put into the system at that point, and the rest was history.

Cal didn't remember how he'd gotten home that day. He was on autopilot of the highest setting. He probably couldn't spell his name right, even if he'd tried right. Dmitri had been going into his apartment when Callen had gotten right outside, managed to stick the key into his apartment door, and stumbled inside, shutting it but not locking it behind him.

Dmitri had followed after him when he'd called out to him trying to get his attention, but failed.

Callen had sat with his back against his bedroom door, and Dmitri had knocked on it until his knuckles hurt, abandoning that for sitting against it. If he tried to ram it down, he would injure Callen, who was right against it on the other side.

He eventually got Callen to open the door, and lead him over to his and Bay's apartment. He wanted to keep an eye on him.

Callen never told him what had happened, but the papers that had been on his person, documents and confidential information, had been enough to paint the story. The next day Cal had acted perfectly fine. They were both dead, not in his life anymore. But what did it say, that he shared the DNA - and name - of a murderer and an alcoholic?

For two weeks afterward, Callen spent the nights alone, in his own apartment.

Q is for Questions.

Callen wasn't stupid ... except he was.

Most of the time, he picked up on things that other people didn't. He was observant in the weirdest ways - noticing the little things but usually not able to piece them together into a bigger picture - something that Dmitri could do better than most people[they were a team even when they didn't try to be, really].

Sometimes, however, things sailed over his head. Far, far above his head, really. That's when these questions came out.

"Wait, what?" Callen asked as Bay and Dmitri collapsed into laughter.

Bay managed to catch her breath enough to say "She was not into you." before she started laughing all over again.

They were all in the shop - which had been a rarity recently - and a tall, redheaded girl had come into the shop. Callen, hitting on her as usual as he worked the register, hadn't seen her eye rolls and heard the snort she had given when he'd tried to make her laugh. She'd left as soon as she possibly could.

"What? She was totally into me! She probably thought I was the best catch she could've ever gotten, but got scared because I'm just that intimidatingly awesome. I have that problem all the time."

Dmitri and Bay shared another look as Bay was overtook by another fit of laughter. "I'm sure that's what it was, Callen." Dmitri said as he walked out back, leaving Bay struggling to catch her breath and Callen pouting and protesting.

Sometimes, Cal couldn't ask anything dumber if he tried.

R is for Reckless.

Cal was able to think on his feet. Sure the plans that he came up with weren't exactly the best, and almost always guaranteed him getting hurt in some way, but that was better than having nothing at all, right?

Then there was the fact that he didn't exactly calculate risks when he did something - both in everyday life and on the job.

Like when trying to slide down the railing in the stairwell seemed to be a good idea.

Or when tackling a gun man at seventeen so that Dmitri could get away seemed to be a good idea.

Or when drawing a dinosaur on the side of his geometry final back in high school for "extra credit" seemed like a better idea than finishing the actual test because he sucked at math anyway, might as well try to amaze the teacher with his magical seven-legged tyrannosaurus rex and stegosaurus love child.

Or when he didn't bother to hide any weapons in his apartment since he was never there, and when someone tried to climb in through his open window he used his lamp like a knife. It worked. Sort-of.

Safe to say, Cal wears the word 'reckless' in invisible ink on his forehead.

S is for Sniper.

Callen didn't exactly have a preference when it came to working in numbers. Some operatives wanted to only do solo ops, while others felt they worked best in groups. Really, Cal had been a person that could go between both. As long as the group worked well together, and he knew he could handle the solo op without needing backup, he really didn't mind either way.

Sometimes, it was a good thing that they were all teens. They could wait around in the city for the signal to go without looking suspicious. They pretty much looked like kids, skipping school to hang out in the city - probably delinquents - and the image was perfect. No one would ever think they were teenage spies of all things. After all, the government would never do something so immoral.

They were in a residential area - not too rich, not too poor - and he was leaning against a park fence while Dmitri was sitting on the bench. There were three others, but they were all talking. It was Dmitri and him who were the closest out of all of them, of course - the other three Cal knew well, but nothing more than he'd call acquaintances. This op would be simple, it was really the cover of a group that they needed that caused them to be more than a duo going in.

He looked up, the apartment buildings looking like they were touching the clouds from where he was standing. He loved tall buildings - they were gorgeous, the way they looked like they could touch the sky. Bay had always had a thing for clouds, how they looked like marshmallows, and he had adopted the idea. Dmitri had just given him a look at the time, as if to say 'you know they're not made of marshmallows', but it hadn't mattered when he and Bay spent the next hour pretending like Bronx clouds weren't polluted enough to make shapes.

He had moved away to get the time from one of the other guys - Cal hadn't worn his watch today, he didn't really ever remember to put it on in the morning, instead it sat gathering dust on his dresser in his apartment most of the time - when something glinted on the top of one of the buildings. It was almost as if something metallic had caught the sun's glare and - that was metal. And - was that a person?

Maybe this wasn't as simple as he'd thought.

Callen had always hated snipers. He thought that it took skill, yes, and maybe that level of concentration was admirable to someone like him. But that didn't mean that he approved of the job's existence by any means. He thought that when you killed someone, you should be able to be right there, in front of them. If they had to die, they needed to know who their killer was, who was ending their life, even if they didn't have a reason.

He shouted out Dmitri's name, maybe not soon enough. He almost felt the bullet, as if he was being shot and not Dmitri. One of the guys had pulled out his phone, and then another - one to call the CIA and one to call 911, he presumed. He could hear his heart beating in his ears as his knees hit the ground. He didn't care that he was in shorts, that he probably messed his knees up really badly, when his best friend was lying there on the ground with a bullet wound to the back.

"Dee, you've got to stay awake for me buddy, Dmitri! Dmitri! Come on man please, just until the ambulances get here, please!" But Dmitri was unconscious, and he didn't even think to check his pulse because what if nothing was there, he couldn't even think of it.

Then there were ambulances and police and then there were CIA agents on the scene - of course they would be the last ones there - but Callen didn't stick around to see anything else. He was in the ambulance with Dmitri, watching as two paramedics rushed around in the back of the vehicle doing things that his mind couldn't comprehend, trying their best to save Dmitri.

He went to the hospital before realizing that Bay would be home from school soon, and he immediately stood up, almost knocking over his chair in the waiting room. He looked down, dimly realizing that he must've looked like a madman. His knees were skinned and bleeding, his hands were covered in blood that wasn't his own, as was a portion of his shirt. No wonder he'd been getting such pitying looks.

He went back to the apartment, showering in the coldest water the shower would allow, and getting changed. He was in the shop when Bay got in, a big smile on her face that immediately fell off when she saw the state of his expression.

Then they were taking a bus to the hospital, Bay crying on his shoulder. He felt numb almost, but he put his arm around her anyway and held her close, and glared at anyone that stared at them for more than two seconds.

Callen had let the CIA know that there was no way in hell that he would be taking on anything until he knew that Dmitri was fine. The administrative representative he'd been forced to tell this to had looked him in the eye and said that there was no way that they were letting him do nothing while he wasn't the one injured. That was the first time that Callen had manhandled someone of his own volition.

"You listen to me, and you listen good. My best friend might be paralyzed from the waist down, and both him and his little sister need me. So unless you want me to snap your neck right here, right now, before the security guard standing outside this room can stop me, I suggest you put that note down in my file." Callen's rough, low tone had the man nodding, and he dropped him, letting him fall to the floor and curl up before storming out of the room.

Taking care of Bay wasn't hard. She stayed out of school for two days - enough to see Dmitri conscious, but only for a minute or two - before Callen forced her to go back to school. Dmitri wouldn't approve of her missing too much, and he didn't want to let his best friend down. He made sure that the shop was in running order, and became superman while Dmitri was in the hospital. When Bay got home from school and the shop was closed, they would go to visit him for the last hour of visiting hours for the day.

Cal lasted on little to no sleep constantly, just because of the many directions he was being pulled in. When Dmitri started physical therapy, it wasn't any better. He was glad to have him home, he was glad that he would be okay eventually, but there was still taking him to his appointments, bringing him back, keeping the shop going, and making sure that Bay was okay. Dmitri tried to help out, but he was in no condition, and time and time again Callen was forced to almost literally force him back into bed.

It was not long after that the two of them returned to active duty on the CIA's roster. Even after this, however, Dmitri didn't feel comfortable going into the city by himself. Cal understood that almost too well, and ran errands for him when he could. He also went with him, as silent support almost, until Dmitri let him know that he didn't need him. Even then, he made sure he was always there for him.

Cal and Dmitri are now on the same page when it comes to snipers. Dmitri's view, however, is much more justified.

T is for Trunk.

In retrsopect, Callen's realized that any op that the CIA calls simple, will not be simple.

That's basically their way of not getting any of their agents nervous or anything of the sort before an op. Really, it would be nice if they gave an accurate description, so that their operatives could go into it prepared. However, the CIA hadn't exactly been the best with logic in the time that Callen had worked for them.

Exchanging money for important information wasn't something unusual. Walk-ins with usable information were more unusual than ops like these. It was him and Dmitri, two agents with more than enough experience to pull this off, except there had been a lot more planning on the enemy side than they had been prepared for. When they had been at the meeting place, with the money, waiting for the other two reps to show up, men had exploded from opposite directions and a fight had blown up.

Callen, who was quick on his feet, didn't get grabbed as easily as Dmitri did. He slipped out of two large men's grasp and took them both down, but his heart slipped into his throat when he saw a car, and Dmitri being dragged towards it.

"Dmitri!" Callen had screamed out, dodging three of the people left conscious as they tried to grab him. He knew that running after the car would be no use in the back of his mind, but he did anyway until it drove out of sight. The men left conscious didn't need him - they picked up their own and tried to gather themselves together to go back to their boss. Callen wasn't worried about them - more like he was on the phone with his liaison, getting across the fact that they needed to find Dmitri now.

When the man had asked him if he still had the money, Callen had almost completely lost it. "You're asking me if I have the money when one of your best agents, my best friend, just got taken away by thugs in the back of a car as a hostage? Are you out of your fucking mind? Send back up, send someone to get me to lead the back up, or I will literally find you and make it so that you can't tell night from day. Okay? Good."

Callen had been a team leader more than once in his CIA career, and so he knew that the money being taken with Dmitri had probably been the one thing that had made this entire situation easier. There were trackers on the bills, and so wherever they were, Dmitri was. Getting his liaison to give him a location was like pulling teeth, but storming the place had been easy enough.

He had been one of the first men on the scene, taking out security and guards effortlessly. When Callen put his mind to it, he was more than capable of handling himself, and fought like a machine. He hadn't been the person to find Dmitri, but he had been, once again, the person that had ridden in the back of the ambulance with a semi-conscious Dmitri. "This is getting to be too much of a familiar feeling, Dee," Cal had muttered roughly under his breath as the paramedic tried to keep Dmitri still.

Since then, Cal knew that Dmitri couldn't handle small spaces, and Cal tries his best to be accommodating.

U is for Unorganized.

Callen wasn't someone that was able to keep things together. Ever.

The word unorganized was a sad understatement. His apartment was a warzone, and he had to search for everything he needed every morning. The only place that was organized in his entire life was his bathroom, and wasn't everyone's?

When it came to the Grey apartment, he didn't make a mess of it because it wasn't his. As much as it was, it wasn't. It was Dmitri and Bay's, and he had enough respect to know that Bay needed things organized because Dmitri needed things organized, and the two of them were a bit too alike in some things for Callen to even comprehend. Not that he liked to think about them being similar for other reasons.

When it came to anywhere that wasn't his, he tried to keep his unorganized-ness at a minimum, which was almost impossible. Callen, by habit or by nature - maybe by both, couldn't keep things together. Period.

V is for Vulgar.

The word censor wasn't in Cal's dictionary. It wasn't that he didn't think before he spoke. Well, he did that too, but he had enough tact to get him through life without dying by Dmitri's hands.

However, when it came to censoring himself, especially when it came to his smart ass remarks or crude comments, he couldn't help himself.

Like the day that Dmitri met Jace - his now boyfriend - he couldn't hold back.

Bay had quickly got all giggly, "Well, his eyes were all over a certain someone." Dmitri was still red in the face, and Cal just couldn't help himself.

"Or, a certain area belonging to a certain someone," he'd said, before Bay turned to him confusedly and Dmitri sent his bitch glare his way. Callen sidled behind Bay, and grinned at Dmitri innocently.

He was used to getting in trouble for it.

W is for Wasted.

Cal could hold his liquor.

Maybe it was because he was Irish. Maybe it was because he just could.

Dmitri, on the other hand, could not. In any capacity. He'd found this out when they'd gone drinking soon after they'd been kicked out of the CIA.

Dmitri was the talking type of drunk. He was the type that poured out everything that was bothering him irrationally, and as long as Callen was there he would've kept going if Cal hadn't realized that the things he'd be saying couldn't exactly be heard by the general population.

It had happened once more, them getting drunk together, but Dmitri had been happy then, and he'd been completely silly. Callen hadn't known what to think of it. He found it more amusing than he probably should've, realizing that the way Dmitri acted under the influence of alcohol really mattered on the mood he was in.

Cal was simple. He got drunk, but it took a lot, and he didn't fit a type, really. He chalked that up to being Irish, too.

X is for eX-CIA.

The ex-CIA is something that Cal could not be more proud of, even though he was only half of the idea, and more the person that went underground and recruited people in the beginning than the person who conceptualized.

He had contacts everywhere. It was a natural thing for him, to keep friendly with people. It wasn't consciously because he knew that he could call in a favor later on, it was just because he wasn't a malicious person, and he didn't burn bridges unless he was driven too far or needed to do it for a good reason.

He'd found old CIA kids, that were no longer kids, easily enough. People that were broken or unemployed or struggling to get on their feet, not yet adjusted to just being normal civilians.

Dmitri's building came in handy. The ones that didn't have homes or were unemployed ended up coming to live in the building, and even did shifts in the shop while they tried to find other work.

Dmitri was the one who kept track of everything, while Callen was more the people person than anything. His skills in communicating came in handy, especially since he was Dmitri's right hand man, doing anything that Dmitri either didn't do or delegated to him.

It started out as a way to take down the CIA's teen division. They would botch CIA missions, but only those that involved anyone under the age of twenty. There are some things, however, that are ingrained in a spy, especially someone that was former-CIA.

So Fordham missions also became a priority.

The ex-CIA were basically there to teach others a lesson. That was basically a function. No one that was a part of it was forced, it was all free will, and if they felt they couldn't continue, then they didn't have to. They were probably the most moral group involved in the business, which was sad, because their main focus was sabotage.

Sometimes, Callen would lie awake at night and wonder what would happen if they succeeded. What would happen to all of those children that wouldn't have to go out and maim and kill and do all of the things that they were forced to because of fat cats and power players that didn't have to get their hands directly dirty because ten year olds were doing it for them. There were some days when he wondered how the people that gave out their orders, who trained these kids, who trained people just like he and Dmitri a few years ago, slept at night.

He got to thinking a little bit too much about the CIA a little bit too often. They'd ruined his life, basically. They'd given him scars - mentally and physically - and they just ... destroyed anyone's lives that they touched. That's why the ex-CIA existed, to fix things.

He didn't get to thinking about how dangerous what they were doing was. He didn't think about how, as their numbers grew, they were becoming a real force, and how they could actually make a difference. He also didn't think about what would happen if they didn't succeed. He didn't think about any of it, because it was easier to live in the moment and to believe that they could change the future, mold it into something better, than to believe that they were just wasting their time, their efforts, their lives, trying to change something that was already written in stone.

Y is for Yapper.

Cal was someone that talked. Often, a lot, whatever other words there are probably apply, too.

He was good at it. Talking. Communicating. Only when it didn't have to do with him, however. When it came to talking about himself in a serious way, it was like he almost completely lost the ability to talk.

One day he'd been on the phone with a girl he'd gotten the number of in the shop, and Dmitri had already told him once or twice to lower his voice, since Bay was studying. Cal figured that, since Bay was in her room with the door shut, she couldn't be as bothered by it as Dmitri was acting.

"You really shouldn't date him, he's a yapper." Dmitri had said as he grabbed Cal's cell out of his phone and said, and then hung up. He handed it back to Cal, whose mouth was wide open, and smiled. "You're welcome, yapper."

Z is for Zany.

It was only sometimes that he realized that Bay acted more her age than any of them. Dmitri acted twice his age, and Cal acted fifteen years younger than he actually was.

She was sitting on the couch, painting her nails while on the phone and watching television. Callen had raised an eyebrow and went to steal a can of coke from the fridge - he was going down to the shop to take over from Dmitri - and overheard Bay on the phone.

"Yeah, he's really cute, and he's ... personality? He's really funny. Kinda silly, no, very silly. Zany's a perfect word, actually. He's ... zany."

Callen's stomach flipped, and the coke in his hand didn't exactly look as good as it did before. He forced it out of his head, however, and walked past her, making hand motions to show that he was going down to the shop, and she nodded, waiting until he was gone.

"His name's Callen - yeah, that Callen."